Forever Her

I remember the day I was born, or, created, as most would say. She was young, fresh out of college and living in the big city all by herself. She harbored many dreams, one being a painter. Another, strutting around the office (where she landed her first job as an assistant) as the CEO. She wanted to be something. Something more. Something important. “I feel like I have all this energy, and I don’t know where to put it,” she whispered after sipping her ten dollar wine in one hand, twirling the paintbrush between her thumb and pointer finger in the other.

Anyone with a dash of familiarity in the art world would label me as an abstract. A canvas covered with the tangible ebbs and flows of one’s thoughts, one’s feelings. “What if I studied the wrong subject in college,” she swiped a harsh fluorescent orange on my lower right corner; “I won’t know what I’m really good at unless I try everything,” she snorted a half-laugh, tickling my surface with a soft flow of burnt sienna.

When the bottle of wine was finished, I was considered complete. She stood back, hands on her hips, a wide smile stretching across her face. She was satisfied, as she should be. She left the room, returning in seconds with a hammer, a nail. She placed me right above her sofa. I was the lone decor, the only pop of color in the studio of white and beige.

Six months later, she came home, slammed the door shut, hand swiping through her hair before slumping beneath me on the sofa. “This promotion would be everything to me, but damn,” she blew out a long breath of air before staring back up at me. I wanted to tell her to paint. Let it out! Make more of what I am. But of course I couldn’t. I could only observe. I could only provide what one was willing to see for themself. She didn’t make it to her bed that night, too exhausted to even change out of her work clothes into her pajamas. Once she fell into a deep slumber, the tension in her face finally gave way to rest and complete relaxation, and even the stretch of my canvas felt a bit of relief as I witnessed her from above.

A year later, with each movement I was tipping, though not noticeable to the human eye, and I didn’t think my wire would completely detach from the nail, but I was becoming a bit worried. “You feel so good,” he told her under lustful, tepid breath. Fear was in her eyes, but so was desire. I saw what she wanted here, but I knew she wasn’t going to get it. “So do you. And you promise, you won’t ever say a word about this at work?” He nodded, and shortly after their combined weight rocked to and fro, came another micro tip, causing my frame to now be noticeably crooked. My instinct about him was correct: if he could cause me to become off-centered in such little time, what was he capable of with her?

Two years later, the sweet aroma of tomatoes whirls around me and as she’s stirring the sauce in the pot, the buzzer blares, spooking both her and myself. “Hello?” she answers, holding the speaker button down. “It’s me,” says a soft, feminine voice. Dinner is served. She sits at one end of the small cafe table, her friend at the other. Spaghetti wraps around their forks as she shares her news. “I got an offer,” she nods, smiling. “Congratulations!” her friend chirps, her face electric with joy. “I needed to get away,” she sighs. “I know. And will this lead to more compensation?” her friend asks, forehead scrunched. “So much more. And a promotion.” Wine glasses clink, napkins become embellished with stains, and small drops of tomato sauce slowly solidify on the table’s surface, left to be cleaned up the following day.

Four years later, she comes in hot, kicking her heels off at the door, hand gripping her phone. “I got the manager position!” She jumps, fist hits the air, her body twisting in a circle. “It is,” she says. “Maybe,” she says after, before ending the call and dropping her phone on the counter. Her eyes dart around the room, landing on me twice, but only for a brief second. She’s thinking, of what I do not know. She’s happy. I think. And if she is, so am I. An hour later, he buzzes in, struts through the door with his arms wide out. He’s better than the first one. And the second, third, fourth, and fifth. She tells him about the position, then: “I’m ready to move in with you. Let’s get a place. A bigger place. A nicer place!” He kisses her, and this, I believe, is his way of saying yes.

Eight years later, I’m hanging in the hallway. Next to his photographs, black and white cityscapes. She passes by me all the time, but I only catch a little of what goes on. Of course, noise has a way of echoing down this hall, turning whispers into full, throat-throttled speech. “It’s happening. Can you meet me here?” she says, pacing back and forth, in front of the bathroom, which I happen to be hanging right across from. “See you soon,” she says, hanging up, rubbing her swollen belly, panting in little short spurts before lifting her head and looking right at me, wide-eyed. Her phone chimes again, drawing her attention back to the little rectangular device, away from me. “That’s our biggest client, yes, you take over until I’m back,” she says, gulping, before adding, “Two weeks, I’ll be back in two weeks.” Sweat starts beading at her forehead, panting escalates to moans. The front door opens, and I can tell because the wall shakes ever so slightly when it does. He’s home. “Honey, I’m here!”

Twelve years later, and the two little “monsters” (what he always called them, and of course in a playful way) are older now, and one, the smarter one, has taken up painting! Years ago, when she was four or five, she asked her mother where I came from, and when she said, “from me, just like you,” with a wink, I was tickled. So proud. I wanted the best for that little monster, but first and foremost, I wanted the best for her. But the echoes in the hallway have become louder, ricocheting off the drywall, setting off alarm bells for the monsters as well as myself. Something isn’t right. Something hasn’t been right for years now. The yelling, the name calling, the “do you even love them?” and, “work is all you care about!" and, “what about me?” More tears than smiles have been had in this apartment for some time, and I’m afraid she’s further away from herself than she’s ever been.

Sixteen years later, one word has been coming out of her mouth over and over again, under her breath, on the phone, when one of the little monsters (not so little, anymore) visits: retirement. She’s burnt-out, she says. Exhausted. Feeling as though, as she puts it, “something’s missing, and I’ve got to figure it out before it’s too late.” Days later, bags are packed, she leaves for two weeks, comes back with sun-kissed skin, a brightly colored kimono, little treasures she places on the shelf beneath me. In another month, same ordeal: gone for two weeks, comes back fulfilled, or seemingly so, then, a week later, needing to plan the next excursion. She knows this isn’t it, but yet, she tries to find it, like it’s a hidden treasure buried in some far away land, instead of being the very thing that’s so close to her, it’s inside her, pulsing away like a second heartbeat. It’s the very thing that makes her, though rarely, stop and brush her finger along my frame.

Six months later, she stops in the hallway, after returning from a faraway place called France. She lifts me up by my frame, and I’m hoping she can feel it. The passion, the vibrancy, the tingle in her fingers to do the one thing she’s been waiting for: paint. But she carries me, carefully, instead, and places me inside a box. One flap closes, then another. It’s stuffy in here. And within seconds, it’s pitch black. There’s movement, and I’ve lost track of time since I can no longer see the burst of light along the end of the hall that lifts with dawn and sinks at dusk. Movement, noise, so much noise. Bumps, over and over, and a constant hum with occasional honking of horns. I don’t know where I’m going, and I do not hear her voice.

Finally, the noise settles, and the bumps have turned to utter stillness. The box moves, and a crackle runs along on top of me as the flaps open one by one. To my surprise, I am with him! Not her. Did she . . . was this a mistake? Did she not want me? Was I too painful to look at? A dream not yet lived? No, no. This cannot be. This is a mistake. “Honey, can you call your mother and tell her she sent me her painting instead of the movie collection, like I asked for,” he grumbles. Yes. It was a mistake after all. “Sure,” the monster replies, not once lifting her head up from her phone she so dearly holds with both hands. A phone, when it could’ve been a brush.

Once again, I’m taped up, feeling claustrophobic in this stuffy cardboard package. But at least I know where I’m going: to her. When the vibrations and thumps cease, I know I’m close. When I’m gingerly picked up, I know I’m even closer. A sliver of metal pierces through the tape, then slides along the center. At first I see her, then, as she lifts me up, I see the space around her. It’s different. It’s small. The windows are huge, allowing the sun’s rays to illuminate the walls, the floors, the sparse furniture, most of which I don’t recognize. It’s quiet. We’re not in the city. Where are we? “What a journey it’s been, huh?” She smiles, tracing her fingertip lightly across my aqua center. “I think I needed this moment to look at you again, to remind me,” she sighs. If I could breathe, I’d be holding my breath, my anticipation so high that after all these years, after the loves, the hurts, the promotions, the burn out, the this and the that; has she finally realized?

She hangs me up, opposite the wall of the windows, offering me an exceptional view. I see her daily now. No more voices to piece together, no more shouting and shed tears. No more phone ringing like a new born baby, demanding attention at all the wrong times. It’s her. She’s mopping, she’s wiping the windows, she’s hanging a bird feeder in the backyard. She’s writing a letter to a friend. She’s cooking tomato sauce, humming to herself, swaying her hips to the beat of an old record spinning away. She’s her. Well, almost.

The next morning, she clears the small kitchen table. She fills a jar with tap water. She disappears for a moment, coming back with a medium-sized plastic box in her grip. She pulls the lid off—pop!—and pulls out a paintbrush, tubes of paint. The fluorescent orange, the bright pink, the burnt sienna, the aqua, a darling purple that looks to match the same purple in my upper left corner. If I had a heart, it might, as they say, be melting. She’s her. She’s back. I witness her, creating, doing the very thing she started but had stopped, wanting to try everything else out before coming back to her truth, her first love, the thing that makes her, her. The thing that inspires her. The thing that allows her to explore who she is, all the good, all the bad, the wishes, the temptations, the joy, the sorrow.

Not before long, the sunny yet bare home is filled with color. Lively, bright, sensational color. Expressions of all sorts. While I still have the best place in the home, I welcome each and every piece she completes, reminding me of the parts of her life that helped create each one. I notice, though selfishly so, the way she lingers at me, just me. The way she stops in her tracks thinking back to the day she made me, wondering where her life would lead her, worried she’d be led astray, knowing she had something important to offer the world. As her eyes transfix on my colors, my strokes, my textures, taking her back to that early time in her life, the before, she is reminded that she is the very thing she needed, and the energy, the drive, the gift, was in her all along.

I am many things, and I will continue to be many things. A decoration a guest points out, an item to dust and care for, a reminder of her past and present, and one day, a passed along piece to hopefully land in the hands of someone who appreciates me. But more than anything, and most importantly, I am her. Forever her.